Category: Statistics

Ann Saudi Med. 2023 Jan-Feb;43(1):35-41. doi: 10.5144/0256-4947.2023.35. Epub 2023 Feb 2.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The ACEF risk score (age, creatinine, and ejection fraction) has been associated with satisfactory predictive values not only for short-term and long-term mortality but also for major adverse cardiovascular events.

OBJECTIVES: Investigate the relationship between ACEF risk score and degree of coronary artery stenosis.

DESIGN: Retrospective, observational study.

SETTING: Tertiary percutaneous coronary intervention center.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: In patients with coronary coronary artery stenosis <70% were compared with patients with stenosis ≥70%. All were diagnosed with chronic coronary syndrome (CCS) and had undergone coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA). Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed for the cut-off value of the ACEF risk score. Univariable and multivariable regression analyses were performed for significant parameters related to degree of coronary artery stenosis in coronary CTA.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Relationship between ACEF risk score and degree of coronary artery stenosis in coronary CTA.

SAMPLE SIZE: 148 patients.

RESULTS: In the multivariable regression analysis; left ventricular ejection fraction (OR: 0.94; 95%CI: 0.89-0.99, P=.015) and ACEF risk score (OR: 5.63; 95% CI: 1.62-19.57, P=.007) were independent predictors for degree of coronary artery stenosis. The ACEF risk score was statistically significantly higher in with patients with stenosis ≥70% (1.43 [0.59]) than in patients with stenosis <70% (0.98 [0.35]), P<.001). An ACEF risk score value >1.04 was a predictor of the presence of severe coronary artery stenosis detected by coronary CTA in patients with CCS, with 66% sensitivity and 69% specificity.

CONCLUSIONS: A high ACEF risk score (age, creatinine, ejection fraction) in patients with CCS is associated with the presence of severe coronary artery stenosis detected by coronary CTA, and was useful as an assessment tool for coronary angiography in patients with CCS.

LIMITATIONS: Since we do not have long-term follow-up results, we do not know the prognostic value of the ACEF risk score in the long-term follow-up of patients with CCS.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None.

PMID:36739497 | DOI:10.5144/0256-4947.2023.35

Iran J Kidney Dis. 2023 Jan;1(1):28-36.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Cardiovascular complications are the most frequent cause of death in chronic kidney disease that happens due to both general and uremic risk factors. Recently, the medical literature has declared the carotid artery intima-media thickness to be an indicator for predicting cardiovascular diseases.

METHODS: This paper is an attempt to introduce an analytical cross-sectional study of 128 hemodialysis patients. The researchers collected the data by reviewing medical records, interviewing the patients, chemical analysis of the patient’s serum and carotid artery Doppler ultrasound, and providing the relevant questionnaire. We performed descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, and general linear model (GLM) analysis. And, the significance level of hypothesis tests was .05.

RESULTS: Seventy-three patients (57%) were male, and 55 (43%) were female. The mean and standard deviation of the age was 58.66 ± 15.54 years. Nearly 42% of patients affected by diabetes, 95.3% were hypertensive and 28.1% had a history of cardiovascular disease. In the bivariate analysis, age, serum albumin, serum magnesium, hypertension, and history of cardiovascular disease showed a statistically significant relationship with carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT). In GLM, we observed a statistically significant relationship between CIMT, age and magnesium.

CONCLUSION: Increased CIMT is observed in a considerable percentage of hemodialysis patients. Age and serum magnesium concentration demonstrate a statistically significant association with CIMT. We recommend more precise long-term longitudinal follow-up studies to investigate the relationship between biochemical risk factors and CIMT. Therefore, multivariate analysis is necessary to assess the simultaneous effects of independent variables and manage influences of confounding factors. We also recommend developing a practical guideline for periodic determination of CIMT in hemodialysis patients to implement convenient preventive or therapeutic measures. DOI: 10.52547/ijkd.7303.

PMID:36739488

Iran J Kidney Dis. 2023 Jan;1(1):20-27.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Renal disorders have been reported as the underlying cause as well as complications of critical COVID-19 in pediatric patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of kidney involvement, particularly acute kidney injury (AKI), among pediatric patients with COVID-19.

METHODS: In this prospective study, hospitalized pediatric patients with a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 were enrolled. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory findings were collected and analyzed using a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches and descriptive statistics.

RESULTS: One hundred and eighty-seven patients, including 120 (64.2%) males and 67 (35.8%) females with COVID-19 with a median age (interquartile range) of 60 (24 to 114) months were enrolled in this study. Most patients (n = 108, 58.1%) had one or two underlying comorbidities, mainly malnutrition (77.4%), neurologic/learning disorders (21.4%), and malignancy (10.2%). According to the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) classification, AKI was detected in 38.5% of patients (stage 1: 55.6%, stage 2: 36.1%, and stage 3: 8.3%) at presentation or during hospitalization. Nine patients (4.8%) required hemodialysis and 16 (8.6%) eventually died. There was no significant association between AKI and admission to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) (P > .05), a multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) (P > .05), comorbidities (P > .05), and mortality rate (P > .05).

CONCLUSION: Kidneys are among the major organs affected by COVID-19. Although kidney abnormalities resolve in the majority of pediatric COVID-19 infections, particular attention should be paid to serum creatinine and electrolyte levels in patients affected by COVID-19, particularly children with a history of malnutrition and kidney disorders. DOI: 10.52547/ijkd.7151.

PMID:36739487

Biophys J. 2023 Feb 3:S0006-3495(23)00089-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2023.01.040. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The cytoplasm is a complex, crowded, actively-driven environment whose biophysical characteristics modulate critical cellular processes such as cytoskeletal dynamics, phase separation, and stem-cell fate. Little is known about the variance in these cytoplasmic properties. Here, we employed particle-tracking nanorheology on genetically encoded multimeric 40-nm nanoparticles (GEMs) to measure diffusion within the cytoplasm of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We found that the apparent diffusion coefficients of individual GEM particles varied over a 400-fold range, while the differences in average particle diffusivity among individual cells spanned a 10-fold range. To determine the origin of this heterogeneity, we developed a Doppelgänger Simulation approach that uses stochastic simulations of GEM diffusion that replicate the experimental statistics on a particle-by-particle basis, such that each experimental track and cell had a one-to-one correspondence with their simulated counterpart. These simulations showed that the large intra- and inter-cellular variations in diffusivity could not be explained by experimental variability but could only be reproduced with stochastic models that assume a wide intra- and inter-cellular variation in cytoplasmic viscosity. The simulation combining intra- and inter-cellular variation in viscosity also predicted weak non-ergodicity in GEM diffusion, consistent with the experimental data. To probe the origin of this variation, we found that the variance in GEM diffusivity was largely independent of factors such as temperature, cytoskeletal effects, cell cycle stage and spatial locations, but was magnified by hyperosmotic shocks. Taken together, our results provide a striking demonstration that the cytoplasm is not “well-mixed” but represents a highly heterogeneous environment in which subcellular components at the 40-nm size- scale experience dramatically different effective viscosities within an individual cell, as well as in different cells in a genetically identical population. These findings carry significant implications for the origins and regulation of biological noise at cellular and subcellular levels.

PMID:36739478 | DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2023.01.040

Biophys J. 2023 Feb 3:S0006-3495(23)00093-0. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2023.02.001. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Cell motility on flat substrates exhibits coexisting steady and oscillatory morphodynamics, the biphasic adhesion-velocity relation, and the universal correlation between speed and persistence (UCSP) as simultaneous observations common to many cell types. Their universality and concurrency suggest a unifying mechanism causing all three of them. Stick-slip models for cells on 1dimensional lanes suggest multistability to arise from the non-linear friction of retrograde flow. This study suggests a mechanical mechanism controlled by integrin signalling on the basis of a biophysical model and analysis of trajectories of MDA-MB-231 cells on Fibronectin lanes which additionally explains the constitutive relations. The experiments exhibit cells with steady or oscillatory morphodynamics and either spread or moving with spontaneous transitions between the dynamic regimes, spread and moving and spontaneous direction reversals. Our biophysical model is based on the force balance at the protrusion edge, the noisy clutch of retrograde flow and a response function of friction and membrane drag to integrin signaling. The theory reproduces the experimentally observed cell states, characteristics of oscillations and state probabilities. Analysis of experiments with the biophysical model establishes a stick-slip oscillation mechanism, explains multistability of cell states and the statistics of state transitions. It suggests protrusion competition to cause direction reversal events, the statistics of which explain the UCSP. The effect of integrin signalling on drag and friction explains the adhesion-velocity relation and cell behavior at Fibronectin density steps. The dynamics of our mechanism are non-linear flow mechanics driven by F-actin polymerization and shaped by the noisy clutch of retrograde flow friction, protrusion competition via membrane tension and drag forces. Integrin signalling controls the parameters of the mechanical system.

PMID:36739476 | DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2023.02.001

Sci Data. 2023 Feb 4;10(1):73. doi: 10.1038/s41597-023-01987-6.

ABSTRACT

Since the early 2000s, sea ice has experienced an increased rate of decline in thickness, extent and age. This new regime, coined the ‘New Arctic’, is accompanied by a reshuffling of energy flows at the surface. Understanding of the magnitude and nature of this reshuffling and the feedbacks therein remains limited. A novel database is presented that combines satellite observations, model output, and reanalysis data with sea ice parcel drift tracks in a Lagrangian framework. This dataset consists of daily time series of sea ice parcel locations, sea ice and snow conditions, and atmospheric states, including remotely sensed surface energy budget terms. Additionally, flags indicate when sea ice parcels travel within cyclones, recording cyclone intensity and distance from the cyclone center. The quality of the ice parcel database was evaluated by comparison with sea ice mass balance buoys and correlations are high, which highlights the reliability of this database in capturing the seasonal changes and evolution of sea ice. This database has multiple applications for the scientific community; it can be used to study the processes that influence individual sea ice parcel time series, or to explore generalized summary statistics and trends across the Arctic.

PMID:36739456 | DOI:10.1038/s41597-023-01987-6

Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 4;13(1):2053. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-28904-6.

ABSTRACT

To investigate differences in clinical features based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in idiopathic isolated optic neuritis patients. We retrospectively analyzed 68 eyes of 59 patients diagnosed with optic neuritis and showed inflammatory findings indicative of optic neuritis on MRI. We investigated clinical features, such as the presence of accompanying pain, visual acuity, and optic disc swelling. Optic disc swelling was classified as normal, mild, or severe. The MRI results were divided into intraorbital, intracanalicular, and whole optic nerve according to the lesion, and these were compared and analyzed with clinical features. The study included 29 men and 30 women, with a mean age of 42.6 ± 16.6 years. Among 59 patients, 48 (81.4%) complained of pain. Optic disc swelling was not observed in 48.5% of patients (33 eyes). Inflammatory changes were the most common in the intraorbital region (33 eyes), intracanalicular region (20 eyes), and the entire optic nerve (15 eyes). There was no statistical difference in the pain pattern according to the location of the lesion (p = .677), but when inflammation was present in the entire optic nerve, optic disc swelling was severe (p = .023). The initial and final visual acuity did not significantly correlate with the MRI pattern, presence of pain, or optic disc swelling (p = .156, p = .714, and p = .436). The MRI contrast enhancement pattern was associated with optic disc swelling but was not associated with pain or initial visual acuity. It should be noted that it is insufficient to judge the clinical features of optic neuritis based on MRI findings.

PMID:36739455 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-28904-6

Epigenetics Chromatin. 2023 Feb 4;16(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s13072-023-00479-6.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: With the advance of bisulfite sequencing technologies, massive amount of methylation data have been generated, which provide unprecedented opportunities to study the epigenetic mechanism and its relationship to other biological processes. A commonly seen feature of the methylation data is the correlation between nearby CpG sites. Although such a spatial correlation was utilized in several epigenetic studies, its interaction to other characteristics of the methylation data has not been fully investigated.

RESULTS: We filled this research gap from an information theoretic perspective, by exploring the impact of the spatial correlation on the methylation entropy (ME). With the spatial correlation taken into account, we derived the analytical relation between the ME and another key parameter, the methylation probability. By comparing it to the empirical relation between the two corresponding statistics, the observed ME and the mean methylation level, genomic loci under strong epigenetic control can be identified, which may serve as potential markers for cell-type specific methylation. The proposed method was validated by simulation studies, and applied to analyze a published dataset of mouse brain methylome.

CONCLUSIONS: Compared to other sophisticated methods developed in literature, the proposed method provides a simple but effective way to detect CpG segments under strong epigenetic control (e.g., with bipolar methylation pattern). Findings from this study shed light on the identification of cell-type specific genes/pathways based on methylation data from a mixed cell population.

PMID:36739438 | DOI:10.1186/s13072-023-00479-6

Anim Microbiome. 2023 Feb 4;5(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s42523-023-00229-9.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Anthropogenic disturbance has the potential to negatively affect wildlife health by altering food availability and diet composition, increasing the exposure to agrochemicals, and intensifying the contact with humans, domestic animals, and their pathogens. However, the impact of these factors on the fecal microbiome composition of wildlife hosts and its link to host health modulation remains barely explored. Here we investigated the composition of the fecal bacterial microbiome of the insectivorous bat Kuhl’s pipistrelle (Pipistrellus kuhlii) dwelling in four environmental contexts with different levels of anthropogenic pressure. We analyzed their microbiome composition, structure and diversity through full-length 16S rRNA metabarcoding using the nanopore long-read sequencer MinION™. We hypothesized that the bacterial community structure of fecal samples would vary across the different scenarios, showing a decreased diversity and richness in samples from disturbed ecosystems.

RESULTS: The fecal microbiomes of 31 bats from 4 scenarios were sequenced. A total of 4,829,302 reads were obtained with a taxonomic assignment percentage of 99.9% at genus level. Most abundant genera across all scenarios were Enterococcus, Escherichia/Shigella, Bacillus and Enterobacter. Alpha diversity varied significantly between the four scenarios (p < 0.05), showing the lowest Shannon index in bats from urban and intensive agriculture landscapes, while the highest alpha diversity value was found in near pristine landscapes. Beta diversity obtained by Bray-Curtis distance showed weak statistical differentiation of bacterial taxonomic profiles among scenarios. Furthermore, core community analysis showed that 1,293 genera were shared among localities. Differential abundance analyses showed that the highest differentially abundant taxa were found in near pristine landscapes, with the exception of the family Alcaligenaceae, which was also overrepresented in urban and intensive agriculture landscapes.

CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that near pristine and undisturbed landscapes could promote a more resilient gut microbiome in wild populations of P. kuhlii. These results highlight the potential of the fecal microbiome as a non-invasive bioindicator to assess insectivorous bats’ health and as a key element of landscape conservation strategies.

PMID:36739423 | DOI:10.1186/s42523-023-00229-9

Biomed Eng Online. 2023 Feb 4;22(1):8. doi: 10.1186/s12938-023-01069-z.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The probability density analysis was applied to automatically characterize the center of pressure (COP) data for evaluation of the stroke patients’ balance ability.

METHODS: The real-time COP coordinates of 38 stroke patients with eyes open and closed during quiet standing were obtained, respectively, from a precision force platform. The COP data were analyzed and characterized by the commonly used parameters: total sway length (SL), sway radius (SR), envelope sway area (EA), and the probability density analysis based parameters: projection area (PA), skewness (SK) and kurtosis (KT), and their statistical correlations were analyzed. The differences of both conventional parameters and probability density parameters under the conditions of eyes open (EO) and eyes closed (EC) were compared.

RESULTS: The PA from probability density analysis is strongly correlated with SL and SR. Both the traditional parameters and probability density parameters in the EC state are significantly different from those in the EO state. The obtained various statokinesigrams were calculated and categorized into typical sway types through probability density function for clinical evaluation of the balance ability of stroke patients.

CONCLUSIONS: The probability density analysis of COP data can be used to characterize the posturography for evaluation of the balance ability of stroke patients.

PMID:36739411 | DOI:10.1186/s12938-023-01069-z